My interest in the book (and I must say that while brief, it’s not for casual reading) was spurred by Pogany’s late-in-life interest in the consciousness studies of Jean Gebser, and how he utilised Gebser’s Kulturphilosophie, the history of consciousness, to illuminate his own field of economic history, as well as emphasise his own expectation of global catastrophe or “choatic transition” (“havoc”) on the way to what he calls GS3 (Global System 3) as the successor to the present socioeconomic paradigm. Most of the book is the application of thermodynamics to a reinterpretation of modern history (especially economic history), and why the present world system is going to start colliding with the reality of the limits to growth between now and 2030.

While I am sympathetic to the thesis that “havoc” will indeed be the historical endgame of the Modern Era, and that this will be a “chaotic transition” to a new planetary reorganisation (world order), I’m not persuaded that GS3 (defined as “two-level economy/ strong multilateralism/ mostly government money (maximum reserve banking)” has much in common with Gebser’s “mutation towards” arational or integral consciousness. For one thing, Pogany cites China as an emergent model of GS3, quite in keeping with the Chinese government’s own boast that its form of social organisation and government is the most appropriate one for a new world order, and which it promotes through its “Confucius Institutes”.

Pogany seems to think that Confucianism is our future. But if it is, this hasn’t much to do with Gebser’s “integral consciousness”. This is the concluding paragraph of Havoc,

“It is worth mentioning that Quesnay showed a remarkable interest in China, seeing a great promise in the fusion of central authority with Confucian philosophy. The focus gravitates toward China also in the thermodynamic framework of universal history. The most populous country’s two-level economic organization seems to anticipate what the planet will eventually need, but with Confucianism, not communism, in the background.”

Peter Pogany (2015-10-23). Havoc, Thy Name Is Twenty-First Century!: Thermodynamic Isolation and the New World Order (Kindle Locations 1735-1737). iUniverse. Kindle Edition

First, I’m glad to see that someone has correctly noted that the political and social condition of China is not “communism” but the rehabilitation of Confucius, who was very conservative. The Maoists, in fact, blamed Confucianism for keeping China weak and backward relative to the West, and did their best — in the “Cultural Revolution” — to purge Chinese society of the taint of Confucianism. That ended with the trail of the Gang of Four, effectively being China’s “Thermidor Reaction” after which Confucius was restored, and China reverted from a totalitarian system to an authoritarian one.

Admiration amongst some Western leaders for China’s “basic dictatorship” (as even newly minted Canadian Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau openly confessed) is actually an admiration for Confucianism. And while that might seem shocking to hear coming from a Liberal Prime Minister, it’s even refreshing compared to former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s obsession with Stalin and the Stalinesque (as reported by “a senior Conservative senator”).

Is the new god of our near future going to be Confucius? If so, that hasn’t much to do with Gebser’s arational-aperspectival consciousness structure. The great foe of Confucius was Lao Tze, the Taoist. The opening lines of his famous Tao de Ching took direct aim at Confucius and Confucianism:

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name

It’s hard to see how one can reconcile China’s “basic dictatorship” with Gebser’s “integral consciousness”, which has more in common with Lao Tze and Chuang Tzu than with Confucius.

GS3 strikes me more as being the immediate near term response (authoritarianism) of the Modern Era to its own self-contradictions, dilemmas, and predicament, rather than a revolutionary transition or in any way a correlate to Gebser’s emergent aperspectival-integral consciousness structure.

While “havoc” and the “chaotic transition” may indeed provoke an authoritarian response (and in fact, it is doing so already, including scenarios like Bertram Gross’s “Friendly Fascism” and Sheldon Wolin’s “Democracy Incorporated“) GS3 seems very unappealing as a new “steady state” New World Order, even though it is likely to come to be, but as part of the chaotic transition, and not as its resolution.

Apart from that, Pogany’s description of the predicament of Late Modernity is worth considering. But it needs to be restated that any true “mutation” of consciousness must be made plain and explicit by the addition of new powers or faculties of consciousness, powers or faculties which reveal hitherto invisible or surprisingly overlooked aspects and relationships between things, including, as I noted in the last post on “Complexity and Consciousness,” dexterity in handling more than one or two variables simultaneously, and I do not see how a merely globalised Confucianism represents such a mutation as much as a reactionary formation.

But it’s true. Even as our politicians and captains of industry bash China’s model, they secretly envy it, without apparently realising that they are all becoming Confucians.

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28 responses to “Havoc, Chaotic Transition, and Confucius”

Interesting. Based on the quote from Pogany in a recent comment, I skimmed through the online Google books preview. Didn’t seem to have anything to do with anything integral. Glad to see you found it to be pretty much along those lines.

GS3 looks more like a traditional synthesis of Marx and Hegel. In fact, if you were to attempt a synthesis of Marxian materialism and Hegelian idealism (spirit) it would probably look like Confucius, with his harmonisation of Earth and Heaven. Same kind of notion. And for quite similar reasons as Gebser saw both Marxism and Hegelianism as “deficient”, Lao Tze saw Confucianism likewise as “deficient”.

I certainly hope we aren’t cursed to go around in Sisyphean tasks and circles like this forever and ever and ever.

Scott,
That’s a quick turn-around for getting a review out! I’ll be quite a bit slower, as I ordered the soft-cover book that will take a few days to print, a few more to ship, and who knows how long for me to read.

That’s really interesting to make the connection to Confucianism. I don’t recall Pogany ever referencing Confucius, and I don’t know much at all about that system.

Yes, Marx and Hegel were perhaps primary influences on Pogany’s “new historical materialism” project, with additional influences from numerous others, including Karl Polanyi, and Gorgescu-Roegan. He’s a transdisciplinarian, so there are lots of influences.

Don, I imagine you were looking at the Google preview of Pogany’s 2006 book Rethinking the World? It’s true, there are zero references to Gebser in that book. The first Gebser reference I’m aware of is in his 2009 paper: “Fifth Structure Emergence in Economics: Observations through the Thermodynamic Lens of World History.” This is a good place to start with in regards to Pogany and Gebser. I’ve found many, many useful Gebser references in his 2009-2013 papers – I plan to create a page summarizing. Here’s the Fifth Structure paper: http://www.humanthermodynamics.com/Fifth_Structure_Emergence_in_Economics.pdf

Hi David – I only had time to quickly skim that paper – perhaps you could identify some section or phrases that strike you as “integral” in the sense that Gebser was referring to (by the way, I find Gebser’s portrayal of integral consciousness quite varying in quality; some things in his massive tome strike me simply as more refined rational expressions, perhaps more well integrated with aesthetic/ethical and what the Indians would refer to as more “Sattwic’ concerns, so i’m not sure that anything that simply refers to Gebser is necessarily integral in the deepest sense).

Pagan’s writing in the paper you linked to strikes me (as quite a bit of Feuerstein’s writing does also) as a refined, postmodern take on integral, still very much in the mental/rational realm).

But as I said, I only took a few minutes to skim it and perhaps missed much if not most of the essence of it.

Just a word about Confucianism – there’s a movement at least 1000 years old in China of “Neo-Confucianism” – whatever Confucius may have meant in his own writings, the “modern” (over the last 1000 years or more) sense has been profoundly influenced by Tantric, Mahayana and other Indian and East Asian mystical influences, including of course Taoism as well – the Tantric in particular is, to my mind, far more “integral” than anything i’ve ever come across in Gebser’s writings, just to throw a little friendly wrench in this conversation:>)) – especially the Vajrayana version of Tantric Buddhism, which made its way into China and grew particularly strong in Japan.

Finally, for a strongly integral view of Gebser (and considering the fact that Gebser himself considered Sri Aurobindo’s view of integral to be more profound than that of Gebser himself), you might want to look up Ulrich Mohrhoff’s “Sri Aurobindo for Gebserians”

Gebser, though, wasn’t looking to replace the Western intellectual tradition with an Eastern one. He makes that quite explicit in Ever-Present Origin. But the fuller treatment of his reasons is given in a book that hasn’t yet been translated, Asien Laechelt Anders, which translates as “Asia Smiles Differently”.

Scott, maybe we can just agree to disagree on this one. I wrote a series of letters some time back a month or so ago on the urgent need to transcend this long useless distinction of East and West – even granting it might have been useful 100 or 1000 years ago, we now can look at the whole history of humanity and find integral consciousness anywhere – whether the Americas or Asia or Africa.

in any case, Gebser did not at all see Aurobindo as “Eastern” (nor did Aurobindo). Gebser quite clearly stated, in no uncertain terms, that his own vision of integral was like a tiny shadow compared to the supramental consciousness that aurobindo described (I am stating this from memory). I can’t imagine how “East” or “West” plays any role in that, at least.

Be it noted that my concept of the formation of a new consciousness, of which I became aware by a flash-like intuition in the winter of 1932/33, and which I began to put forward in 1939, largely resembles the world-scheme of Sri Aurobindo, who was then unknown to me. My own, however, differs from Sri Aurobindo’s in that it appeals to the Western world only and does not have the profundity and the pregnant origin of his ingeniously presented conception. I see an explanation for this phenomenon in the fact that I was in some way brought into the extremely powerful spiritual field of force radiating through Sri Aurobindo.[1]

Wow, I just noticed something. The place I originally discovered Peter Pogany was the Jean Gebser Society blog, where there are exactly two posts. The most recent by Peter Pogany, and the other, original post was written by, wait for it, … Scott Preston!

In that initial post, Scott reproduces one of Gebser’s last written documents on The Integral Consciousness, originally published in Jan.-Feb.of 1974. Here is one paragraph:

“It is precisely because Asia and the Occident are not mutually exclusive opposites, but are mutually complementary poles (which may very well one day rediscover their common roots), that it is important for this consciousness to be coherently and fully explored. This now becomes even more necessary in view of the fact that my earlier publications have been mainly concerned with providing evidence of the dawning of the Integral consciousness and of the forms it has taken in the Occident in recent decades, and have not addressed themselves sufficiently to the unique character of this new constellation of consciousness.”http://blog.gebser.net/2012/01/jean-gebser-integral-consciousness.html

yes, exactly. Common roots. Maybe i should just quote that paragraph every time Scott denigrates (I know Scott – you don’t think you are but I believe you are) or misrepresents “the East”).

I have a feeling (boy I’m getting into deep waters here) that this is because of the influence of H’stock (sorry I can never remember his name) who i imagine simply absorbed the standard German attitude of his day about the mysterious East.

Maybe we can come to some kind of truce where a mention of Neo-Confucian ideas from the 10th century is always accompanied by:”I’m talking bout COMMON ROOTS, not anything inherently “eastern”;

or something like that:>))

Anyway, I leave you with a smile:

I am, therefore (among other things), I think – just remembering not to put Descartes before his Source

I have a feeling (boy I’m getting into deep waters here) that this is because of the influence of H’stock (sorry I can never remember his name) who i imagine simply absorbed the standard German attitude of his day about the mysterious East.

I really have no idea about any “denigration” of the East in the Chrysalis. And as for common root, what else is the “ever=present origin” or, in fact, the centre of Rosenstock-Huessy’s “cross of reality”?

In fact, in his “Christian Future, or the modern mind outrun”, Rosenstock-Huessy takes a stab at showing how the world religions relate to one another through the cross of reality. It was part of his project of generating a “universal history”.

I’ve recovered some rudimentary computer functions, enough to get me by for the time being, anyway. I will, unfortunately, have to put my laptop out to pasture.

Scott, maybe we can just agree to disagree on this one

We will have to I think. And I think the issue is what we variously understand by “integral” or “holistic”. It might help if you make your own understanding of this more explicit.

we now can look at the whole history of humanity and find integral consciousness anywhere – whether the Americas or Asia or Africa

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here, because if anything the Chrysalis has even overdone pointing out the recurrence of the same implicit pattern diachronically as well as synchronically — the recurrence of the same fourfold pattern; the same four “guardians” wearing different disguises, or even as the four directions — north, south, east, west. These aren’t geographical coordinates. They are value coordinates.

It needs to be re-emphasised — one can’t have an “integration” without simultaneously a differentiation. The root paradox is the identity of the One and the Many.

Hi Don,
On page 10 of the “Fifth Structure” paper Pogany outlines what he sees as Gebser’s “19 criteria to appraise aperspectival movements and tendencies” and in the appendix beginning on page 22 he provides definitions of these criteria, and what I see as his interpretation of what “integral consciousness” means. He’s heavily dependent on Feuerstein (whom I haven’t read) here in his early (2009) consideration of Gebser.

I was going to provide a bunch of quotes from Rethinking the World yesterday to kind of outline his general ideology (from the section he calls “Saga,” but I ran out of time.

I’ve read The Ever Present Origin as well as a number of articles by Gebser (including some published in the Theosophist, which didn’t make the kind of East-West distinction that’s being made here) as well as all or most of Feuerstein’s writings on Gebser.

As far as I understand him, Feuerstein was crystal clear in all of the writings I’ve seen that Aurobindo’s integral vision went far beyond Gebser – which I thought Gebser made pretty clear himself in that statement I quoted. When I was involved briefly with an online Gebser forum, it was clear that many people could quite clearly and concisely quote Gebser (such as Ken Wilber) yet still not have any idea what he was talking about (Feuerstein made clear over a period of many years that he felt Wilber consistently misunderstood Gebser, though Wilber never acknowledged it and since the early 1980s has made Gebser’s categories a core part of his “theory”).

By the way, comparing Gebser’s integral vision to that of Aurobindo doesn’t in any way for me involve a denigration of Gebser – nor does it have anything to do with East, north, west or south.

Feuerstein has been as much criticized for mistaking Gebser’s “integral consciousness” as much as Wilber has been. I can’t comment on that as yet, because I’ve only just begun reading Feuerstein’s work on Gebser.

I”ve also begun reading more deeply into Aurobindo’s works, and I have some concerns about it, particularly some echoes of Brahmanism and his apparent antipathy to sexuality and sensuality, and his suggestion that procreation of the race should be left to lesser developed humans — in other words, it’s the caste system by any other name, and with a sexual proletariat.

Firstly, I should reiterate what I’ve said before. If anything, I’m a disciple of William Blake. My appreciation of Gebser (as of Nietzsche too) is much owing to the light Gebser and Nietzsche both shed on understanding Blake’s “fourfold vision” and the more arcane and esoteric aspects of Blake’s mythology and prophecy. Same goes for Rosenstock-Huessy.

Just from my early reading of Aurobindo, there are clear differences between him and Gebser despite the similarities. Those differences are not impertinent. They are highly relevant to cultural history and historical context as well as a sense of destiny, although a comment isn’t the place to draw them out in detail.

I reiterate also what Seth pointed out. There are “species of consciousness” — different pathways. This is how it should be.

Don,
Regarding Mohrhoff’s “Sri Aurobindo for Gebserians,” that sounds intriguing. The only Aurobindo book I own is the short survey book “The Essential Auribindo,” which I’ve only skimmed so far.

I did just find on my hard drive an article I’d saved by Mohrhoff: “Evolution of Consciousness According to Jean Gebser.” I don’t remember reading this, so either I’ve forgotten, or it was something I downloaded for reading later, then forgot.

Thank you Ulrich for providing a link to what looks to be some very valuable resources.

As to “Sri Aurobindo for Gebserians”,

In his philosophical writings, Sri Aurobindo is chiefly concerned with the large-scale evolution of consciousness, whereas Gebser supplies fascinating details of the evolution of human consciousness on a finer scale. For Sri Aurobindo the decisive evolutionary steps are life, mind and supermind; for Gebser they are the magic, mythical, mental and integral structures. From the Aurobindonian point of view, nothing stands in the way of identifying the integral structure with supermind. Such an identification was explicitly endorsed by Gebser. But because of the different evolutionary scales envisaged, the evolution of supermind as expounded by Sri Aurobindo stands out as an even more radical proposition than the manifestation of the integral structure as set forth by Jean Gebser.

I concur completely with that statement, and stated some of my reservations about Gebser’s model and method in earlier posts.

Thus while supermind looks upon itself as the one Conscious-Existence adopting a plurality of knowing and determining standpoints, mind experiences itself as a multiplicity of separate entities. And while supermind perceives each thing as the One Existence under a particular aspect, mind sees each thing as a separate integer. Supermind also transcends the distantiating perspectival outlook of mind. It knows all because it is all, not at a distance but immediately, by identity. Its Self encompasses the world. Its vantage-point is coextensive with space. It likewise encompasses past, present and future time.

The creative action of supermind is primarily qualitative and infinite and only secondarily quantitative and finite. At its origin, mind is the agent of this secondary action—measuring, limiting, defining, individualizing. But when separated in its self-consciousness from supermind, mind becomes a prisoner of the quantitative and finite aspect of reality which it had helped to create.

That is an exact description of my “Dream of the Fish”, as well as providing the rationale for considering Rosenstock-Huessy’s “cross of reality” the nexus between mind and supermind — a map of the integral consciousness.

I’m curious if anyone has a problem with this very brief summary of Gebser’s concept of “integral” (with acknowledgement of some reliance on Feuerstein) from Pogany’s “Fifth Structure” paper:

APPENDIX
(1) The whole: Originary givenness spiritually awared.
(2) Integrity: Harmonious coexistence among all structures in the lived experience of integral consciousness.
(3) Transparency: Based on the thermodynamic worldview, the individual sees, senses, and feels the unity of past, present, and future. Such a synairetic way of “understanding” becomes the permanent backdrop in dealing with all problems of human life.
(4) The spiritual: Excessively ambitious calculative deficiency withdraws in the face of originary presence. The intellect is no longer dominated by a compulsion to squeeze the world into categories; quantifying, tabulating, and formalizing every aspect of it. Primal trust overcomes primal fear.
(5) Supersession of the ego: Reduction of egoity — Ichhaftigkeit. (Feuerstein describes the outward manifestations of integral consciousness. See, Feuerstein, 1987, p. 170).
(6) Realization of timelessness: Connection between archaic-magic preconceptual and integral postconceptual “being-without-time.”
(7) Realization of temporicity: Recognition of mythical elements (e.g., cyclicality and destiny) in the structure of consciousness.
(8) Realization of the concept of time: While becoming the integrating factor of all dimensions, time itself disappears (becomes amension) both as an absolute scientific/philosophical concept and as the Molach of daily life.
(9) Realization of time-freedom: The integrative vantage point renders individual, community, and cosmic existence transparent.
(10) Disruption of the merely systematic: Freedom from mental-rationally perceived causality, liberation of creativity.
(11) Incursion of dynamics: Conscious appreciation that ceaseless animation is a fundamental aspect of all forms of existence, including human thought.
(12) Recognition of energy: The science of thermodynamics absorbs and reinterprets conceptualizations and characterizations of time.
(13) Mastery of movement: Transformation of consciousness begins to take an outward shape.
(14) Fourth dimension: Conscious absorption that Being is temporally dimensionless.

(15) Supersession of patriarchy: Movement toward integrum is catalyzed by the elimination of man/woman duality in the socioeconomic sphere; decline in the relevance of masculine symbolism in theological metanarratives.
(16) Renunciation of dominance and power: Discovery that imbalances in personal and social relations are ultimately futile, collectively harmful, and consequently, untenable in the long run.
(17) Acquisition of intensity: The presentiation of “Itself” (Sich) as internal transcendence in opposition to the mere expansion of consciousness. (This theme is too abstractly related to economic theory to make a plausible connection.)
(18) Clarity (instead of mere wakefulness): Recognition through a “systatic act” that the outer-related (exhaling) mental-rational world of wakefulness, buffeted by previously dominant structures, is insufficient to achieve true freedom.
(19) Transformation of the creative inceptual basis: History is no longer viewed as a path of some linearly imaged progress; the future as an unlimited design of human volition.

I suppose the elements and characteristics that stood out strongly for Pogany are those that resonated most with his economic and thermodynamic interests. “Acquisition of intensity” is an odd way to put it — like increasing market share, and the contradiction of a “postconceptual being-with-time” as being a thermodynamic “reconceptualisation”. And I think fretting about whether to call it an “expansion” or an “intensification” can get a bit overdone, drawing us back into thinking in terms of antitheses rather than polarities.

Otherwise, I don’t think there’s much wrong with this, although this kind of distillation seems a little dry. I think Ulrich’s “Evolution of Consciousness According to Jean Gebser”, which relies on excerpts from Gebser’s own work to present an overview, is more pertinent, although it might assume greater familiarity with Gebser’s ouevre than most people have. But maybe not…

A good site to test Pogany’s hypothesis about the chaotic transition is the GlobalEuropeAnticipationBulletin (GEAB). They currently have an article on systemic transition, but they don’t see China as the new pole.

The “East-West Dialogue” can’t be better exemplified than in this: Ulrich discovers the meaning of quantum mechanics in Indian philosophy, while his colleague, Amit Gotswami, discovers the meaning of Indian philosophy through quantum mechanics.

Thank you all. Human is a receiver and transmitter of energy, high and low ,positive and negative. Responsibility is an individual affair and what others say is only beneficial as far as it waters the roots of my tree of responsibility. Energy is blocked by fixed meanings, when narrowed human perception insists that things must only go one way. Rumi said , there are hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground. It is the story of the one and many and the honest dance of the one and the many. Not every piece of writings presented are truthful. This recall to my mind, Horton the editor of Lancet medical journal saying, much of the scientific literature, perhaps half may simply be untrue. Heat of honesty pushes forward, away from being prisoned in this or that river, after all rivers pour in the sea. Let us not forget the sea.

One can consider that to the “leaders” of the world, this havoc, or chaos must precede order or like their motto states: “ordo ab chao”.

That’s how they wish to bring about the transition to “Novus Ordo Seclorum” (as is written on the dollar bill).

For this to happen, they need to achieve the culmination into what THEY see as integral-consciousness (except that it is only a way to serve their own interests) by the means of a One Religion, a system of beliefs and political directions that may not be that different from the confucionism you mentioned. Maybe in that sense they see China as a model, but those are just my ramblings on the subject… 😛

I see it as a new form of imperialism, though.

And “havoc” may arrive even faster if indeed the engendered WWW III begins, taking in account the rate of worldwide key events lately. But maybe not just yet… What are your thoughts on this? Too much of a conspiracy?

Meanwhile humanity “sleeps” serenely to the “music” of nowadays, entranced by the light of their cell phone screens, car displays, commercials, outdoors, tvs, anything that overwhelms their vision, or their ears too, for that matter. An elusive “darkness” of colourful signs and images that shadows the mind so that their thoughts can barely escape. What a paradox…

Fortunately there are people that see through the fog and stand against all the lies, like you.

Thanks for being this piercing voice in the uncomfortable, consenting silence (sometimes even conniving) of the immense mass of “average citizens” like you posted a while back, which aren’t expected even to think for themselves anymore.

As usual I wish you the best, and feel grateful for this blog where truth can be freely poured in words, with much technique and wisdow, by the way.

And “havoc” may arrive even faster if indeed the engendered WWW III begins, taking in account the rate of worldwide key events lately. But maybe not just yet… What are your thoughts on this? Too much of a conspiracy?

Not inconceivable. One hopes that “cooler heads prevail”, but that’s not exactly the case when the mind is at “the end of its tether”, to refer back to H.G. Wells on this. In some ways “cooler heads” and being “at the end of one’s tether” are mutually exclusive.

Of real danger is recent reports that the Persian Gulf may become uninhabitable. That would be very unsettling, so to speak. If you think the refugee and mass migration crisis is severe now, just imagine that as one possible scenario.

On a different vibrational plateau, the three basic tools of human interaction, perception, emotion and action seem to be in complete chaotic situation, in complete separation from each other, but moving on contrary paths. We talk away from action, we act away from emotion, we perceive only the seen away from the important forces of the unseen. It seems we talk of decline without fear and Patricia visited Mexico and Texas not to remind of these unseen forces but for entertainment and news. The dislocation of peoples seem to be looked upon with deep unconcern and the media are happy debating the trivial and in complete oblivion of the serious. Lies into divine reality is havoc. We enjoy divine knowledge and defy the divine. What a sorry story. The signs of the doom is everywhere.